This charming country station that could have been plucked from the pages of a Thomas the Tank Engine book does double duty as a gourmet restaurant.

(While I was munching on a muesli bar from the train’s vending machine, these distinguished guests were dining on veal topped with foie gras!)

The longer answer is …

… they’ve flown over from England to Spain for a whistle-stop tour of their heritage: the scenic Victorian train line locally known as ‘Mr Henderson’s Railway’. Skirting Los Alcornocales Natural Park, Europe’s largest cork forest, the railroad was financed by the patriarch of their tribe, Sir Alexander Henderson, 1st Baron Faringdon of Oxfordshire, a mere ‘Mister’ when it opened over a century ago.

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Mr Henderson’s Railway Past & Present

Old steam engine, Los Barrios

Chocolate box station

Modern train, San Pablo

Mr Henderson’s name is linked to many more famous and important railways but none with so colourful a history: a line in Spain plied by British trains powered by steam through what was once, notoriously, ‘bandit country’. He also financed elegant Edwardian hotels at either end, the Reina Cristina in Algeciras and the Reina Victoria in Ronda. Their own history is spiced with stories of Hollywood stars, WW2 spies and a young Winston Churchill. (More on that coming soon!)

Celebrities and writers rode the line (the ubiquitous Hemingway too – he sure got around). TB sufferers and the families of Gibraltar garrison officers rode it for a fix of Ronda’s fresh mountain air. Fine Edwardian ladies rode it (craning their necks for a glimpse of those reckless bandits, no doubt). Smugglers rode it too, to sell their contraband goods through the carriage windows.

Today, two of Mr Henderson’s great grandsons and their clan are riding the line for the very first time. (Perhaps for the last time, too, but that’s another story.)

The train is modern but the views are little changed in over a century: a collage of cork oaks, dwarf olives, orange groves, white villages, nesting storks, lonely goatherds and majestic mountain peaks flashes past the carriage windows, much as it did in their great grandfather’s day (but now in faster-forward).

Views from Mr Henderson’s Railway

Jimena de la Frontera in winter

River deep, mountain high

Jimena de la Frontera in summer

The train winds a circuitous trajectory across river and mountain, via 20 bridges and 16 tunnels, to an altitude of some 750 metres – an astonishing feat of engineering.

Much like the present Lord Faringdon’s family’s visit – a one-year feat of engineering.

It took 8 months of mind-boggling Spanish bureaucracy to engineer the train’s un-timetabled stop at San Pablo (where it sometimes stops anyway) … plus many nuts and bolts in assembling the three-day itinerary.

For this feat of ‘people engineering’ Manni Coe, indefatigable MD of Toma Tours, should take a bow. Keeping 21 members of the same family, and guests, happy on a whistle-stop tour in a foreign country deserves a mention in the annals of guiding! Toma’s Revival Walking Tour this October, based around the railway, can only benefit.)

Mr Henderson’s Railway Hotels

Reina Victoria Hotel, Ronda

Reina Cristina Hotel, Algeciras

While I wait, I pace the laminate floors of the Reina Victoria, recently reopened after zealous refurbishment. Most of the original objets d’art have been spirited away for safe keeping by the new owners, Fundación Unicaja Ronda. But the wallpaper and mirrors in the Salon de Espejos are genuine.

A distinguished gentleman in natty red trousers approaches.

“I’m Mark,” says Lord Marlesford of Suffolk, offering me a firm handshake. “Lord Faringdon will be along shortly. We’re second cousins, you know.”

Lord M regales me with tales from his Cambridge undergrad days. In the 1950s he worked in the kitchens and waited on tables at the Reina Cristina! (More on that coming soon!)

We are joined by a gentleman with silver hair and a broad smile. The present and 3rd Lord Faringdon in the flesh (and looking great for 75).

For the next hour we talk about everything – the weather, the IMF (Lord M was a journalist on The Economist), pata negra (Lord F is looking forward to trying some), Manni’s organisation skills, the “splendid” countryside views through the train windows – everything except what I’d really come for: the history of the train itself.

Lord F shakes his head sadly. “Nothing. I come from a family of shredders, you see. When my great grandfather died, all he left in the middle drawer of his desk was his passport and title deeds.”

“Although maybe I do have something …” Lord F, seeing I’m crestfallen, goes off to his room to fetch it.

He returns with a photocopied excerpt from The Tangier Diaries 1962-1979, by American author John Hopkins. “Wonderful writing – sums up the whole thing, I think, including the weather,” he laughs.

And he proceeds to read it aloud, quite beautifully, with enunciated consonants and rounded vowels. English as it used to be spoken! (I’d link you to the tape recording but the ‘muzak’ in the background quite spoiled it.)

This is what he read:

“Today we took a train up here through the green hills of Andalucía. Spring has come howling into southern Spain and, after days of torrential rain and frightening winds, we were greeted by sun and a profusion of wild flowers. Fat pigs snoozed contentedly beneath the cork oaks and we passed the diminutive, immaculately white Spanish RR stations one after another. Now we are living and working in this austere but comfortable hotel (the Reina Victoria). A thick, icy wind moans out of nowhere as screeching eagles dive over the cliff. Rilke stayed here during the winter of 1912-13. His sad effigy surveys the valley from the garden.”

“Let’s have one beside old Rilke,” says Lord F, when I ask if I can take a photograph. Thousands of German-speaking tourists flock to the Reina Victoria just to share the views that inspired this Austro-Hungarian poet.

It’s windy and spitting with rain again, so the scene is perfectly set.

Out into the garden we go to stand by Rilke’s statue, sharing his view of the mist-swathed valley below us (minus screeching eagles).

It’s one of those ‘cameo’ moments’ you know you’ll remember forever.

Lords F & M with Rilke & the Mistress of Sizzle

As we say our goodbyes, Lord Marlesford glances at my business card and chuckles.

“Mistress of Sizzle eh … what’s that all about?”

Sometimes, I wish I knew!

“Well, everyone claims to be a writer these days so I have to make the distinction,” I explain.

As a fellow journalist, Lord M understands. Although it was a bit easier to earn a living from writing then than now.

I’ve spent unpaid weeks ‘selling the sizzle’ of this wonderful little train and Lord Faringdon’s visit. What a great story! But only Michael Portillo replied (well, his researcher, to be honest). My other emails are circulating in cyberspace, marked ‘deleted, not read’.

Enough to make anyone’s sizzle fizzle.

But I’m not giving up! My brief encounter with two British peers on a rainy day in Ronda has rekindled my sizzle. I’ve made a spiritual connection with the railway that stops in my village (Los Barrios) and I’m going to ride this train to the end of the line.

Whatever it takes and wherever it takes me!

TRAIN TRAVEL INFORMATION

Timetables for this route are like gold dust so I’ve photographed the 2013 times below (as best I could). However to be safe, you should check out Renfe’s online timetable here, clicking Find All Stations to plan your route. The train goes all the way to Granada, where the Science Museum makes a wonderful day out and you can read my article on it here.

If you’re coming from west of Gibraltar, board the train at Algeciras.

From Estepona, Marbella or points east, Estacion San Roque is your nearest station. You’ll need to drive here and leave your car in the station car park. (NB Estacion San Roque is not to be confused with the town of San Roque which is some distance away, as are all the mountain villages from the stations, around which small ‘hamlets’ have grown).

Alternatively, you can drive the route, either going the scenic way via Estacion San Roque/Jimena de la Frontera, or the quicker route via Manilva/Gaucin.

Double-click the photos, then double-click again to expand to readable size.

Belinda

Belinda Beckett shares perspectives from both sides of the Spain-Gibraltar border. A qualified journalist & freelance writer living in the Campo de Gibraltar, Andalucía, she specialises in travel/lifestyle features, humour columns, business writing and website copy writing with wow factor. Find Belinda on Google+

Thank you kindly Belinda for your historic notes on the British accents of a region pinned between World Policing and Resource raising, or British Gibraltar and British Riotinto Mines, that is. Ronda once was the Simla of the West. Hundreds of railway novels could be written in this “Western-Express” background. Keep on going and, most of all, keep on writing. The longer the best. Tell us where to get your publication here in Madrid

Simla, the summer capital of British India – that’s interesting. The British architecture down this way certainly seems to bear that out. If you have any further reading you could suggest I’d love to hear from you. My Publication? You may be referring to my Trip Planner on how to travel the railway under your own steam. This is free, to get hold of a copy just sign up for the Sizzle at the bottom of the Home Page (you will never get spammed, you’ll just receive a copy of my bi-monthly posts) or read about how the Planner first by clicking this link: http://belindabeckett.com/mr-hendersons-railway-trip-planner/. Thank you so much for your interest!